REDLANDS – For Redlands resident John Berry, “support the troops” means fixing their computer and picking up their children in their absence.

“No one ever knows what `support the troops’ means, so I wanted to give some definition,” said Berry, an Esri employee and chief warrant officer in the U.S. Army Reserve.

Berry left Friday for a nine-month deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. He is reporting to Fort Meade, Maryland, Monday, and will be with the 704th Military Intelligence Brigade, which conducts intelligence, computer networking and information operations.

It is his third deployment – he was called up during Desert Storm and a few weeks after Sept. 11, 2001. This is his first time going to Iraq and Afghanistan – he could not say “exactly what I’m doing or when,” he said.

He has a son, Marshall, 6, and wife Sharilyn, whom he married at the Redlands home of friend Julie Michaels.

“The (soldiers) who always had the biggest problems were the ones with problems at home, so that made them less effective on job,” he said. “What it means to you the public is I can go to a war zone and focus on my 12-hours-a-day, seven-days-a week job instead of worrying about my family.”

His family is accustomed to shorter absences for Reserve duties, he said. This time, his son “knows I’m leaving and is kind of somber about it,” he said. Marshall, who attends Montessori in Redlands, calls one of his father’s destinations “Hafghanistan.”

“He thinks daddy’s going off to fight the bad guys, which I am,” he said.

Berry spoke to Marshall’s class Thursday, one of his last community stops.

“The class is sending him notes,” Sharilyn Berry said. “Marshall said it was the first time he’d seen John in uniform he brought meals ready to eat and showed what was in that.”

School staff have been supportive, and the Berrys said they have a roster of friends who serve as emergency contacts and who will pick up Marshall when Sharilyn, who works in Ontario for the University of La Verne, cannot. John Berry said friends will stay with Marshall so his mother can go to choir practice and Bible study.

“For people with children, it’s knowing in a pinch someone pick up your kid,” she said. “It is easy to stick a bumper sticker on your car.”

Berry said his dentist in Redlands sent him off with supplies like floss. Esri co-workers are available to deal with computer problems, and a church handyman changed the locks on his home, John Berry said. Esri extended his benefits so he did not have to switch his family to the military system, he said.

“When you get mobilized, so many things come up,” he said.

RJ Sunderman, who works with Berry at Esri, said their supervisor immediately “made phone calls to make sure things would go smoothly as possible.”

“A lot of Esri employees came from the military, so we appreciate (their) sacrifice leaving their family and want to make sure you don’t need to worry about anything leaving home,” he said.

John Berry said Sharilyn has a list of cell phone numbers.

“I don’t think families can anticipate everything entirely,” she said. “most stuff at the house I can handle, but if the smoke alarm went out and I didn’t have a ladder, there are several people who could help.”

Michaels said it is the small things. She has weekly potlucks at her home, and attends Marshall’s basketball games.

“You can make sure families are included in social events, they don’t get isolated,” Sharilyn Berry said.

Faith is also important, John Berry said. On Jan. 2, his church, First Congregational, prayed for he and his wife during services.

“It was unexpected – I was biting the inside of my cheeks not to cry,” he said. “My wife was in the choir so she had to go up and sing, and everyone’s looking at her.”

Associate minister Peter St. Don said Redlands is a patriotic town and First Congregational is a patriotic church.

“I think a lot of people are looking out for Sharilyn and Marshall because they’re aware from their own service, there needs to be a moral and emotional support,” he said.

“While John’s away I might make a special point (Marshall) gives me a high five, (I ask) `How’s your dad?’ That he knows that hey, we’re proud,” he said.

He said Berry’s deployment brings the war close to church.

“It’s on our minds when we watch the news, John’s on our minds,” he said.

“For me as a minister, the worst is also on my mind,” he said. “If things go bad, what should we do?”

Marshall has many friends, he said, “and that really takes the edge off.”

After the service Jan. 2, in which ministers, deacons and deaconesses surrounded the Berrys and placed their hands on them to pray for them, John Berry said he received “a sea of handshakes and hugs.”

“What makes that important is it’s easy in a war zone to forget that people support you,” he said.

Soldiers are isolated and adopt a “bunker mentality,” he said.

“You remember something like this, you remember they reached out and physically touched you,” he said.

On Wednesday night, Sharilyn Berry and Michaels arranged for John Berry to honored at an Ontario Reign hockey game.

“They announced my name and showed my picture on the (Jumbotron), people were giving me an ovation, including the hockey players,” Berry said. “I had complete strangers come up and say, `God bless,’ shake my hand and wish me safety.

“It makes me want to work harder for them.”

The Berrys said people they have encountered are supportive of troops, no matter what their opinion on the war.

“I’ve never encountered a negative comment,” John Berry said. “Even people against the war are supportive.”

Berry said the time will probably pass quickly because he will be working so much. When he returns he will “decompress” with a family vacation, hikes and church, he said.

He anticipates being deployed again.

“This war is going to go on for generations,” he said. “I never want support for troops to wane.”

Sharilyn said support has been “so much more than any thing we asked for people who don’t even live around here have still been so supportive and so willing to help.”

“Don’t wait for that person for initiate contact with you – just call them up,” Michaels said.

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